Publication Details

Abstract

Last year’s centenary of the publication of the Capital and this year’s 150th anniversary of Marx’s birth are jubilees which find, after years af dogmatic stagnation, Marx’s thoughts in an intensive progression again. The purpose of the present anniversary consideration on Marx’s work is to determine, in more detail, its historical meaning rather than to state its vitality. Such an evaluation emphasizes the significance of Marxological reflection, since it is possible to reason fruitfully on the historical sense of Marxism only in the relations tension of thought between the original Marxism and its later developmental phases, between the individual kinds of contemporary marxism, and in a principal confrontation of the theory of Marxism with the practice of the communistic movement. The ideological polarization of the evaluating standpoints is today complicated, first of all,, by far-reaching changes in the nature of contemporary Marxism. It is evident that the character of evaluation will therefore depend, to a certain extent, on how the concept of „Marxism“ itself will be defined and interpreted in Marxology. In this connection Marxology is faced with a number of formal difficulties (which refer to the development of the structure of Marxism) as well as comprehensive difficulties (concerning its ideological and knowledge content and its differentiation) which complicate the endeavor univocally to define Marxism. Contemporary Marxism differs quite evidently from original Marxism not only by the pluralization of its content, but also by its differentiation as regards themes and opinions. Consequently, it is impossible today to evaluate Marxism indisciminately, but only concretely, with regard to its various contemporary kinds, whose hasty development unsettled temporarily the old generalizations and systemic structures. Marxism today is an abundantly pluralized complex of philosophical and social knowledge which cannot be reduced to any partial and, hence, simplifying dimensions. That is why it is necessary and possible to understand its social mission as a rational programming and control of the emancipative historical practice of man. In this sense Marxism is fully responsible for the success and failures of the revolutionary communistic movement as its theory and not only as an irrational social myth, suggesting certain aims and models of behavior to the society by irrational means. In this particular illuminative humanistically oriented theoretical function, which makes possible qualitative changes of out-dated social situations, today’s actualness of Marxism is being, corroborated and, at the same time, its positive historical value as well. Marxological interest in Marxism cannot have in this connection only purely historical sense. It is a theoretical mirror in which the contemporary development of Marxism is being reflected in its basic historical binding, which mediates a better comprehension of its substance, its historical mission and its inner inegrity and thus clears up important presuppositions of its fruitful ideal development as of a truthful cognition and the right ideology of human progress.